


The Way You Wear Your (Santa) Hat

by jat_sapphire



Category: The Professionals (TV 1977)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Card Exchange 2018, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 17:38:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20531945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jat_sapphire/pseuds/jat_sapphire
Summary: Doyle tries it on;  Bodie isn't sure how to react.





	The Way You Wear Your (Santa) Hat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brune_arici](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=brune_arici).

"How can you? Say that? Call yourself ... that?" Bodie had asked, his eyes open so wide that his whole iris showed. He looked paler than usual, but that was probably the cold white winter sun drifting in the window.

There was a long silence, while Doyle slowed his anxious breathing, felt the chill air in his throat. Bodie's eyes went back to normal; he shook his head a little.

In spite of that, Doyle answered, "I call myself what I am. And fancying you's easy, don't you always say?" Bodie grimaced; Doyle paused and watched the mobile mouth and eyebrows go back to puzzlement, to worry.

Doyle forced his voice into calm, low tones. "I'll explain, shall I?" It wasn't like other rejections, he told himself, or like anything he'd feared. Bodie wasn't hitting him, yelling at him, threatening exposure, dumping their partnership.

But he hadn't said yes, either. And his face now was a study, as if he were still curious but didn't really want to be told.

"Not right now, though." Doyle's smile felt cramped, and there was an odd ache in his chest. "Right now, mate, all the same to you, I'll take m'self off."

Bodie's hand came up as if to grasp Doyle's arm, hovered in the air, fell to his side. "See you, then."

Doyle pushed harder at his smile. Bodie was a good bloke, a good mate, and he was trying so hard. "Yeah, tomorrow." And Doyle got himself out the door without, he thought, exposing himself any further.

He walked quickly down the St John's Wood street from Bodie's latest flat toward the Tube. No snow, at least, though he probably ought to have buttoned his overcoat and tucked his scarf closer around his neck. His boot heels clacked on the frosty pavement like train wheels on iron rails; with so few other walkers, he could go faster, faster, until he was half-running, still unable to outpace the waves of embarrassment and disappointment, frustrated desire and self-reproach. He should have known.

The important thing, he thought the next morning, jittering and nude after his shower, hair dripping onto his shoulders and one drop sliding over his collarbone, was to change nothing. He knew from undercover work that once you had a persona, you needed to dress and move and speak the same, and if you did bollocks up, you had to incorporate the mistake and work it.

So he couldn't suddenly wear loose dress trousers and shiny shoes, even if he had owned any. He shouldn't wear the patched jeans or the leather bum-freezer, mind you, the ones that shouted, "Look here!" but an ordinary pair with half-boots, that would be normal, and it was chilly enough for the red jumper, and under that the rugby shirt would do.

Bodie wouldn't look twice.

(Pity, that.)

That afternoon, they shot their way out of a meet that one of Bodie's grasses had set up, and when they ducked round the corner into an alcove, Bodie hauled Doyle back by the hips until they were so close that Doyle felt the zip pull of Bodie's jacket poking into his shoulder even through the wool of his overcoat. Bodie's breath huffed warmly past his ear. The shots might not have stopped for good, so they stayed a while.

So close that Doyle could feel Bodie's attention shift. Could hear him pull in a long breath, then a short one as if he were about to speak, then let it out again in a soft hiss through the nose.

Doyle didn't remember for a moment that nothing was supposed to change. He was so sure he knew what words he'd almost heard that he murmured, "Yeah. That's ... I never can forget. I think of it, how you smell."

He almost added, _when I'm wanking_, which was true, but not something to say right at first, like this. Doyle turned his head, got a too-close view of the ridge of Bodie's jaw and the side of his nose, and breathed, "The way you hitch your eyebrow when you're scared."

"Stay alive, Doyle," Bodie growled, and pushed him out of the alcove. So Doyle ran while Bodie shot back, then covered Bodie's escape to the car.

Later, in the Capri, still light-headed with adrenaline, Doyle blurted, "Your hands."

Bodie, driving, pursed his mouth smugly and said, "Heard that before, haven't I." He took a sharp turn at speed; they leaned into the side of the car where the tyres weren't touching the ground. Bodie's fingers, pale with cold, flexed on the steering wheel. Doyle turned in the passenger seat and drew his gun. But their eyes met for a second.

"Yeah, bet your birds like how long those fingers are. But on the wheel or the gun ...." Doyle craned his neck, his other arm on the seat back bracing against the swerving motion, and then he got a sight of the pursuing driver and shot through the back window of the Capri, the front of the black Jag.

"Not so shabby yourself, sunshine."

Doyle looked over, caught the glint in Bodie's eye, the teeth in his grin, and tilted the gun muzzle upward, smiling himself. "Yeah," he said. "Got 'em."

The Jag slewed across the road, collided with the icicle-hung wall of a back garden; the ice fell like a theatre curtain while the Capri sang with speed and danced as Bodie directed it.

Doyle faced forward again. Looked as though nobody else was chasing them.

Bodie swallowed, licked his lips, and spoke: "Can't just be me astounding beauty, though, can it?" His eyes darted toward Doyle and away.

"Oi, watch the road, don't fancy being spread along this railing." It was wrought iron, bordering a yellow-green square with a few of the sprogs of the well-to-do, well-bundled up, and a fluffy, bouncing dog.

"Now that's my Doyle. Wondered were you sickening for something,"

"Picture of perfect health, me."

"And sunny temper." Bodie cast a sceptical look across the car, but Doyle was still silent. "Didn't think there was a germ for good humour."

"No cure for what you've got." Doyle recovered his old grouchy sound.

"For perfection? No cure needed." That was Bodie's would-be-posh voice.

Doyle snickered, then guffawed at the face Bodie was making. "Oh, mate," he said, wanting to use another word but knowing Bodie wasn't ready to hear it. "The way you make me laugh!"

"I like hearing it," Bodie admitted, his voice a little shy.

"Any time." Doyle smiled, thinking of it.

The Jag still appeared to have been the only pursuit, so they went back to get that grass, try to find out what was going on. They dug Petey out of his hole, and Bodie punched him, then towered over him, glaring down, feet braced apart and fists ready, his shoulders and buttocks tight. Doyle stood back and admired. It was Bodie's grass, after all, not his place to get into it unless Bodie wanted a good-copper.

He didn't seem interested in that. Immobile, he waited until Petey started talking of his own accord. Predictably, it was another beating Petey was afraid of, and Bodie's present fists outbid the potential violence of the muscle Red Hanrahan employed.

"D'you know how you stand, when you're threatening some stupid oik?" Doyle couldn't help but ask as they got back in the car.

"Not thinking of it—not posing." Of course Bodie denied it. He wouldn't admit the rising colour in his cheeks, either, now Doyle had said he was watching.

Cheerfully, he rubbed it in. "No, but it's a show all the same."

"_I'm_ a show!" Now Bodie glared at him.

He'd never admitted to looking before. Doyle took a long breath, hope filling his lungs and lifting him, trying not to let his feeling onto his face. "Yeah," he said softly, evenly. "I do pose sometimes."

After a pause, Bodie started the car. He drove more slowly than usual, not passing the cars in front of them, checking at corners. The street was slippery, but Doyle didn't think that was the reason. His voice, when he spoke, was calm and low as Doyle's had been. "For me."

"Mostly."

Bodie's lips pursed; his eyes crinkled with amusement. "You are a one," he said.

"And you're another."

In the HQ car park, when Bodie had shut off the engine, neither immediately got out of the car. "Another what?" asked Bodie, looking at his own hand on the steering wheel, and though it had been several minutes, Doyle knew what he meant.

"Oh, no, mate, that's for you to say. I've always swung both ways. Sounded yesterday as if you couldn't believe even that much. I made too many assumptions then—not making that mistake again." He was beginning to feel irritated. It hadn't been easy, today, though he'd tried to make it seem at least direct, honest.

"I. Don't know what you want me to say."

"Anything true."

Bodie gave him that straight, grim look. "How can what you, what you see in me be special, a sign of being something, when, when I've always noticed you, almost the same way? What does that make me?"

For all Bodie kept his problems to himself, walled Doyle out (for his own good) and drove Doyle round the twist with it, when he wanted to be, he was so honest that it was like a sword thrust. More than once he'd left Doyle bleeding with it. Now he'd let out all the air in Doyle's lungs, certainly all the self-congratulation for telling his own truth.

"You're the only one who knows," Doyle said quietly.

"I _don't_ know."

Like that. Made Doyle feel as if he were haemorrhaging, just like that.

"Well." He cleared his throat. "Then nobody does." He looked out the passenger window at the concrete of the car park. Took a deep breath and let it out, trying not to let embarrassment swamp him. "Didn't mean to press you. I'll back off, shall I?"

He went for the door handle, not looking back. A strong grip on his arm caught him; Bodie said. "Don't. Doyle, stop."

Then he couldn't have moved if there'd been a bomb under him.

Slowly, softly, as if afraid that Doyle would hear too easily, Bodie said, "You know I'm always touching your hair. Do you know how it smells, especially when you've been standing in the sun? And the way you lean back against a wall, cross your arms and legs ... that's a pose, innit?" By now, Doyle was staring, mesmerised. Bodie was still holding Doyle's arm but gazing out the windscreen. "When you're drinking your tea, I suppose you never think how your mouth looks on the edge of the cup. And the way you ... touch ... your lips." He was almost inaudible now. "When you're thinking."

"You have the most beautiful mouth," Doyle blurted again. "Can ... I want to ... "

That little quirk at the corner of Bodie's lip made Doyle's mouth water. "We're at work," Bodie said in a sexy, shocked voice.

Doyle shut his eyes and willed his body to calm down. "Red Hanrahan," he ground out.

"Yes." Bodie's hand uncurled itself from Doyle's arm gradually, finger by finger. The palm lifted away. The space where it had been was cold.

Fortunately for their investigation, just as Hanrahan wasn't the only IRA bomber in London, Petey wasn't their only IRA grass. Bodie knew a bloke who made bombs for whomever would pay for them, and Doyle knew a driver who felt he wasn't paid enough for the risks he took. Between the two of them, they got information to make reports convincing enough for Cowley to give them A Squad backup and call out the bomb squad, so the raid was efficient and brought in Hanrahan as well as most of the rest of the gang. No one was killed, though Bodie had a near miss, jumping into the line of fire, which made Doyle so angry he could hardly speak.

"Easier ways to make me back off, sunshine," he nearly growled when they were alone in their little office. "Almost pounded you into next week. I still want to."

"With your fists, Ray?" The look on Bodie's face was strange, as if he were satisfied, as if he were pleased. He sat on the edge of the desk, where the sun now thrust long fingers across the wood as if (Doyle's mouth twitched, trying to smile) it also wanted to touch that muscled arse.

"Stay alive, Bodie!" Doyle shook him by the shoulders; Bodie rode the motion without resistance.

"You saved me."

Doyle stared. The familiar face, the dark eyelashes. "You'll kill me."

"Never that." Oh, that curve of his lips, that look in his eyes. He'd come to a decision, maybe.

"Tell me," and Doyle leaned in, "tell me you want it. That you're like me."

Bodie licked his lips and Doyle felt his heartbeat speed up, beating where his own mouth was barely closed.

"I want you," Bodie breathed. "The names don't matter."

As much as he wanted to have what he'd asked for yesterday, while desire flamed up like a Roman candle and burned his breath, Doyle couldn't forbear: "They matter to me. Don't shut me in this closet, mate. Don't get your leg over and walk off whistling."

"Away from you?" Bodie's voice held laughter now.

Doyle shut his eyes. "I wish I had your confidence."

"Bollocks, Ray. You've got more bottle than anyone I've ever known." Bodie swallowed. "Telling me what you felt. First."

Remembering the bone-crushing clutch of fear he'd felt, Doyle had to smile. "Can't have what I don't ask for."

Bodie's finger—just one, cold and dry—traced over the curve of Doyle's eyebrow, over his eyelid, back through his eyelashes, circled the implant in his cheek, then—"I'm asking," Bodie said just above a whisper—across his lower lip.

Doyle gasped, his mouth shaping yes, and Bodie kissed him before Ray could force breath out to repeat the word while his heart pounded. He felt the pulse thundering in his throat, even more when Bodie touched and then laid his open lips there. No voice, only air, carried Ray's "yes ... yes," and he opened his eyes to see an expression on Bodie's face that was entirely new. Bodie's big, warm hand covered Ray's cock, through his jeans, and he pushed helplessly into it. "The way you're touching me now."

Bodie stood, grasped Doyle's biceps, turned him around until the edge of the desk met the back of his thighs.

"I'll touch you." So deep in the broad chest that it sounded like an echo in the earth. He leaned in, and Ray leaned back, until his elbows hit the desk. "Everywhere."

"Here?" Doyle tried to look scandalized but suspected that he only looked aroused, since he was. Bodie was standing between his thighs. His hands were on Doyle's hips.

Bodie closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "You're a devil. How am I supposed to drive?"

Doyle shook his head. When Bodie opened his eyes, he shook it again.

Slowly, Bodie moved his hands away; slowly, he stepped back. Equally slowly, Doyle sat up, pushed off the desk. Bodie took one more step toward the door.

Doyle turned away, because if he didn't stop looking, there'd be no way to not kiss Bodie again, and again after that, and then they'd probably be trying to get out of HQ with embarrassing stains on their trousers.

"I'm," Bodie said, "I'll, just. Get the car."

Doyle heard the door open and close. He waited only a few moments, not wanting to give Bodie time to decide on a name for this that he didn't want to be.

He hadn't scarpered, anyway: the Capri was waiting right near the door when Ray came through it. Bodie didn't look comfortable. As he drove out of the car park, he said suddenly, "Who knows? Have you told your mum?"

"Yes. Not until I was grown and away. When I came back for me da's funeral. She wanted to know why—what he told me, anyway, was why—Da kept pounding me. I think he was just a mad bastard, but he'd said he'd pound the poofter out of me."

Bodie swallowed but did not speak.

"Got to say," Ray went on, "never told me sisters."

"Cowley?"

"Yeah, told him during intake. Seemed like something … well, if he was going to fire me."

Bodie shook his head, kept his eyes on the road. Another block or so went by. "Didn't tell me, though. Till yesterday."

Doyle didn't answer until Bodie looked over, then back to the road.

"I didn't really think you'd pound me. But. It took me a while to … truth is, I thought you'd noticed, so I had to tell you."

Bodie's mouth thrust out into a half-smile. "And you couldn't have what you didn't ask for."

"So I asked. And you asked."

"And we both got it. Will get it." Bodie pulled the car over, passenger-side wheels up on the kerb. "Here we are. Will you walk into my parlour?"

"Said the spider to the fly." But Ray got out of the car and waited for Bodie, who had almost his usual grace as he walked up behind Doyle. A shade less.

The main staircase in Bodie's flat block was a wide spiral, treads and rail black and spindles white. On it, under a clear pale sun from the skylight, Bodie's hair and the stair treads, Bodie's skin and the spindles, matched so closely that the whole vision seemed a woodcut.

"Up a winding stair," Ray said, following.

"And many are the curious things I'll show you when you're there." Bodie's smile glinted back, angled down, scraped inside Doyle like a match. He climbed faster, caught up, touched the nape of Bodie's neck and between his shoulders.

And found himself with his own shoulders against the stairwell wall, the railing angling up from one buttocks to the other waist, past his tailbone, as he bumped the back of his head, and Bodie watched with a predatory look no spider could match.

For what seemed a long time, Bodie just stared. He leaned in, gradually, one hand on the wall beside Doyle's head, the other flat on Doyle's solar plexus. That splayed hand radiated heat; Ray almost felt the touch of that hot gaze as it passed over his face, settled on his lips. "AC/DC, is it?" Bodie murmured.

"Charged up?"

Bodie's whole expression broke, cracked into one of his boyish, laughing—Doyle realised—_loving_ expressions. “Sunshine,” he said, as if it meant Ray alone, as if it meant _I want you_ or even _I'm in love with you,_ “you're giving off _sparks_.” He grabbed Doyle's hand, pulled him up the stairs, unlocked the flat door and ushered him through it.

Inside it was Christmas in Harrod's, or the closest approximation that one man with a reasonable but not high income (and very little spare time) could make it. Two matching silver trees, garlands round the moulding, ornaments everywhere, and a kissing ball just inside the door.

Doyle walked into the sitting room, turned in a circle to get the full effect, and laughed. “Really! Bodie, really!” Facing the door again, he saw how Bodie was beaming and offering his hands.

“Happy Christmas,” Bodie said.

“Softie,” Doyle said and stepped in, took Bodie's hands and kissed him. “All this tat.” Kissed again, still lightly, expecting Bodie to step back, maybe make a joke about birds, but he didn't. He put his arms around Doyle and held him close, then closer still, held the back of his head and then both sides, fingers threaded into his hair, and kissed over and over.

“If you're my pressie, I get to unwrap you, don't I?” Bodie murmured after quite a while, in that happy, sexy voice of his.

“All twelve days, if I can do the same,” Doyle said.

Bodie buried his mouth in Doyle's hair, as if to stop it opening to let the wrong words out, and squeezed harder.

“It's all right,” Ray whispered into Bodie's ear. “All the time you need.” He kissed in the shell, licked with just the tip of his tongue, felt Bodie's face push into his neck and the shiver Bodie couldn't control. “Do we do this gift-exchange here in your winter wonderland?” and Bodie stood up, still with that bedtime smile, and used his grip on Ray's forearms to drive him backward into the bedroom.

“No,” he said, “on my Christmas duvet,” as Ray fell backwards, as he saw appliquéd wreaths and holly leaves, because his madman actually owned a Christmas duvet. Ray lay on his back, letting his arms fall open at his sides, and laughed more, while Bodie watched, and went on watching while he pulled up his jumper, unbuttoned his shirt and peeled down his trousers.

“Oh, no, you never put on a show,” said Doyle as soberly as he could (not very), and let his face tell how much he loved seeing Bodie bare himself, while he sat up and undressed as well, so he could feel all that beautiful skin, along with the pale scars which he could feel more than see, and the eagerness in Bodie's touch, and the glow in his eyes. He remembered Bodie saying _I want you_ in the office, and though he hadn't bottomed since he applied to the Met, he said “You've got me,” and knew Bodie understood.

Of course he had lubricant, of course he knew just how to ease the way for that proud staff of a penis of his, and Doyle tilted his head back again, trying to pant and grin at the same time, trying to say that the long fingers were touching him clear up to his heart, but could hardly get out “ff- your ffing- uh, yessss,” and Bodie chuckled and took Ray's cock in hand, worked him like a pro, brought him off like a fountain, and then pushed, pounded and fucked Ray clear to the feast of Epiphany. The thought made Ray laugh again, and Bodie joined him as he came.

“Funny, am I?” Bodie asked, boneless in the puffs of duvet, but Ray saw the sternness was all sham and kissed the smile back onto that gorgeous, sleepy face.

“Hi-_lar-_ious.” He'd rather suspected that Bodie was the type to have a kip after sex, and there he was dropping off. Doyle rested his cheek on Bodie's shoulder and watched through the window as the day faded, as the snow finally fell. When Bodie woke, they'd have to decide what to do for Christmas dinner, Christmas night, Boxing Day.

Maybe Bodie didn't have plans. Ordinarily, Ray would worry, but now he felt as if he were as full of treacle as his arms were full of Bodie, and he let his heavy eyes shut, let sweetness engulf him.

“Happy Christmas,” he felt Bodie speak through his bones, and felt it was entirely right, “luv.”

_Luv._ Ray smiled as he let sleep take him.


End file.
